PITTSBURGH — State officials are opening thousands of acres of public land around streams and lakes to Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling, partly to provide revenue for crucial repairs to dams. Water from state-owned lakes will also be sold to drilling companies for hydro-fracturing, or fracking, a process that injects chemical-laced water to break up the shale and allow natural gas to escape.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that it would be irresponsible not to lease,” said John Arway, executive director of the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission.

Arway told The Associated Press that a review of the 43,000 acres of land and water the commission owns led the agency to the conclusion that if it didn’t sell leases to the gas that is thousands of feet underground, neighboring landowners would do so anyway.